The Story Sauce
Empowering writers
JUNE 18th, 2025
TSS #5: A Cumversation with... Neondextrose
Today's edition of TSS continues the "A Cumversation With"-series, where we feature creator spotlights through interviews.Our guest of the hour is a creative powerhouse: Writer, voice actress, audio engineer, seamstress – is there anything Neondextrose can't do? Dex takes us on a beautiful journey through her involvement in the NSFW community and shares valuable insights concerning all things creative.
FEB 6th, 2025
TSS #4: Staying Safe in a NSFW Space
Existing in the spicy community as a writer, editor or VA can be a beautiful thing. It is rewarding to see others enjoy your creative output, and exciting to forge bonds with fellow community members, thus eventually forming your own little realm within the space where you feel heard, supported and comfortable.Unfortunately, there comes a time when we all have to deal with the fact that not everyone in this community has our best interest in mind. This post helps you to navigate those uncomfortable situations.
FREE guide for scriptwriting
This free 17-page PDF includes tips on how to write, format and host your scripts.
MAY 1st, 2024
TSS #3: How to monetize your scripts / content
After a while of publishing content of any sort in the space, you might want to explore options of monetizing your content. In this episode of The Story Sauce, we will explore different ways of monetizing NSFW & SFW works, primarily for script content. Let's learn about getting started on monetizing, how to open up (and get!) commissions, safe and anonymous payment methods and more.
MAY 1st, 2024
TSS #2: A cumversation with... cuddle_with_me
Today's edition of TSS pops the cherry of the "A Cumversation With"-series, where we feature creator spotlights through interviews.The first creator spotlight starts off with a bang: cuddle_with_me is a script writer and the creator of scriptbin.works, the most popular script hosting site in the community. We talked about his first steps in the community, how scriptbin was created and the future plans of his projects.
MAY 1st, 2024
The Story Sauce #1: Porn with plot
In this edition of TSS, I want to focus on one of my favorite parts of every script: the plot. We have all heard the saying “I watch porn for the plot”. Well, when it comes to audio porn, the plot is even more important when crafting an immersive experience, for both the voice actor and the listeners.
FREE guide for scriptwriting
This free 17-page PDF includes tips on how to write, format and host your scripts.
MAY 1st, 2024
The Story Sauce #0: Introductions
Welcome to The Story Sauce! My name is Arielle, but I mostly go by Ari. I publish scripts on reddit under the username LostMyTypewriter. I have been a creator in the community for two years now, but before posting myself, I was an avid listener of GWA content.
June 18th, 2025
The Story Sauce #5: A cumversation with Neondextrose
Today's edition of TSS continues the "A Cumversation With"-series, where we feature creator spotlights through interviews.Our guest of the hour is a creative powerhouse: Writer, voice actress, audio engineer, seamstress – is there anything Neondextrose can't do? Dex takes us on a beautiful journey through her involvement in the NSFW community and shares valuable insights concerning all things creative.
Thank you again for agreeing to this. I'm so excited to get this opportunity to interview you for The Story Sauce! I created The Story Sauce to share insights on creative writing, editing and voice work, and of course to highlight the creative work of awesome community members like yourself.Just in case someone is new to your work, would you introduce yourself?Of course, I'm thrilled to be here! Hi, I'm Dex. My full handle is Neondextrose and I am a spicy content workaholic. I've been involved in the NSFW community since 2021 and I've done visual content as well as all aspects of erotic audio (VA / Writer / Audio Engineer).What inspired you to start creating NSFW content in the first place? Did you start out on Reddit, or what was your platform of choice?In the beginning, I started out doing only visual content on Instagram as a way of exploring my sexuality as well as trying to find my sexual power. I'm a seamstress by trade, so my comfort zone was creating personas or cosplays I could slip into that would allow me the permission I felt like I needed to feel a certain way about myself.I have a nice mic set up from when I used to be heavily involved in podcasting. Around July/August of 2021, I was like "I can write, why don't I try writing something spicy and recording it? If I die of cringe, no one will ever hear it." And what I ended up doing was writing an hour long erotic narrative. And it was the most empowering experience I'd ever had, far beyond anything I'd been doing visually and got hooked.Can you tell us more about the one hour long narrative, and your creative process behind it?A lot of my work stems from fantasies, so I found a comfortable one and started writing. It was this pining, angsty tale about a college girl who graduates, comes home [thank you economy] and realizes a single dad moved in next door.It's established that they have met, she has baby sat for him before, but one night he comes home from a busted date and it's become obvious they have chemistry. My favorite umbrella to sit under is the 'We Shouldn't' umbrella so it was big on the [experienced male] [inexperienced female] [babysitter but aged up a lot] [chemisty], that kind of thing.Oh, yes... The "We really shouldn't" types of fantasies are one of my favourites, too. So deliciously forbidden. I'm so glad you're mentioning the psychology behind all of the spicy, naughty themes. Do you have a specific approach when it comes to making sure these small touches, longing looks and psychological processes translate to your content?Yeah, the biggest thing for me is realism. I'm sure you've read or listened to things and you've made a face and thought "no one says that" or "no one does that in real life" – that's the kind of stuff I analyze with my work.Does this really happen? Do people really say these things? How can I make a seemingly simple exchange just a little bit hazier? A finger graze on the exchange of a drink. The bump of a leg under a table. What do those little interactions feel like to the reader / speaker / listener. How do those things impact them?
"The scenes I see in my head are movies and when I'm locked in, I need absolute silence because I'm watching it play out as it's pouring through my fingers."
– Neondextrose
If you want to focus on realism, what steps do you take to ensure it feels "natural" to you? For example, when it comes to writing, are there certain rituals you have that help you ensure a natural flow?Oh, reading out loud for SURE. I will catch instantly if I've written something that looks good on paper but doesn't sound natural or believable out loud. I'm still learning how to close the gap from my writing voice to my speaking voice.I might be in the minority but I write in total silence with my headphones on but not playing anything. The scenes I see in my head are movies and when I'm locked in, I need absolute silence because I'm watching it play out as it's pouring through my fingers. I'll pause / pan the camera / rewind / whatever I need to do in a scene to make sure that I'm not missing a single scrap of context that I could possibly use to my advantage.Also, beta readers are so so crucial and I have come to adore those that beta read for me because I will miss some obvious stuff sometimes. I have a few people that I trust to proofread my work and provide feedback for improving my phrasing to create bigger impacts and that's been absolutely invaluable to me. I didn't do well in school but I'll be damned if I'm not feral for learning how to improve my writing.The concept of seeing your scripts in your head as if they were movies is so interesting! Do you feel like imagining the scenes playing out in real life as you write them is a big help? How often do you rewind and go "No, wait, that’s not it"?It's how I've always written, I've always seen everything I write as a movie. Before I started writing erotica, I got told that my work should be in graphic novels because it reads so deliberately with a detail-oriented focus that it's basically a graphic novel but in writing form.I'll be honest, I don't often rewind. When inspiration hits me, I see the scene in like 2-3 seconds from start to finish. I know exactly how the characters are going to move, I know how it's going to play out, and then I can start the beginning and work my way through.Because of this process, my characters run away with me more than I run away with them. They develop their own voice and because I understand their personality, it almost becomes easier than trying to force something that might feel unnatural for that personality type.
"Just like you shouldn't push yourself in the gym if you're injured, you shouldn't push yourself creatively if you're burnt out or stuck."
– Neondextrose
We all experience road blocks while creating content. What if that wild ride your characters take you on brings you to just that? Do you have any tips or strategies on how to handle creative blocks?My biggest tip – and this is coming from 30+ years of being a creative – is to rest. I have found when I'm blocked creatively, no amount of inspiration forcing, wishing on a star behavior is going to get me to do anything unless I rest. I push creatively for all of my jobs (except my day job) so my tanks are very rarely full to begin with.If I sit down and I'm staring at a blank screen when I know I have a story in me somewhere, the only way to find it is to rest, which is often not the answer I want. I need something non-creative to knock the cogs back into place. Sometimes I'll take a drive, I'll play with my cats or take care of my plants. Gordon Ramsey has gotten me through many a burnout.If I have learned anything – forcing creativity can often lead to internalized resentment and that doesn't help the creative process. The simmering resentment can bleed into other things like imposter syndrome – "I wrote that great thing once and I can't do it now – I'm a failure and I've conned everyone into thinking I'm better than I am."To anyone that this resonates with – you are not alone. Just like you shouldn't push yourself in the gym if you're injured, you shouldn't push yourself creatively if you're burnt out or stuck. Give your mind time to rest and you'll be back creating works of art before you realize.I think everyone needs to hear this, because I do believe everyone has felt this. But hearing it from another creative might just put things into perspective, like, Hey, I am not the only one feeling like this.This community is so supportive but it's also important to resonate with these softer, more vulnerable feelings too because it is terribly lonely and isolating.When I wrote Apple Season, I was like 'this is my magnum opus." Deeply emotional, It was full of longing and heartache and it was built on the fragility of new love and the potential brevity of those feelings. I crashed out HARD after. I didn't write anything from September to December. Didn't open a word doc, didn't have any notes in my phone. I struggled really hard with feeling like I'd never measure up to that ever again, like I've somehow bamboozled everyone into thinking I'm this great writer when I couldn't even open a word doc.Then with the support of some people who I confided my feelings in (and experiencing true rest for the first time in months) my creative side showed up again. You have to create an environment where your creative side feels safe to create and if it doesn't feel safe, everything feels like an attack.That is such a vulnerable thing to share, and something I resonate with deeply. It sounds like letting yourself rest and community support are some of your main factors to keep going. What advice would you give new people just starting out in the community? How can they find this support?This is such a loaded question and I have so many layers I want to respond with. If you're new, this community can be hella intimidating. Some people (including myself) have been here a long time and it can be nerve wracking to interact.Be genuine. Interact with the community, listen to audios – leave comments on scripts – let people learn who you are. Be receptive to feedback – it's hard to offer advice to someone who is asking when it's perceived as a personal attack.I offer all sorts of levels of mentorship (NSFW voice acting / writing / editing) to people and the first thing I tell them is – this isn't personal, it's just business. What I'm intending to provide with feedback is not a critical tear down of their writing or performance, I'm going to offer opportunities to understand how they can take the advice and apply it to their style to improve. I don't want everyone to write / perform like me, I want everyone to write / perform like they do – but better with guidance – if that makes sense.Art is subjective – this medium is so different and the content that people create in this space can be deeply personal. So it's just a matter of finding a way to encourage and teach without stifling or crushing the enthusiasm for the art.I love that you offer mentorship. Do you often have people reaching out for advice?I do! and I do my best to make time for everyone with my whole attention, but I will preface it sometimes with the understanding that I have deadlines and commissions to finish before i can get to it.
"When it comes to monetizing this kind of work – you're monetizing the chemical cocktail in your brain."
– Neondextrose
You are active on many different platforms. What are the biggest challenges and rewards of monetizing NSFW content on different platforms, can you maybe share some advice for people trying to branch out onto other platforms?Stay consistent. Find something you like doing- keep it simple, set a schedule for yourself and see if that feels good to you. If that feels good, build a backlog of content that you can release on a schedule for your (paid) followers. Backlog backlog backlog.The relief of knowing there's content in your backlog will free up your creative brain to make more content and your followers will come to have the hype you need because they'll expect the drops.When it comes to monetizing this kind of work – you're monetizing the chemical cocktail in your brain (arousal). You have to realize that if you monetize, it's no longer fun it's a job and you have to treat it like a job – which often takes the fun out of it for a lot of people.How do you know that you are ready to start another platform?When I started Black Curtain Audios and my SFW persona, I launched with no backlog, no schedule, no plan. And they just sat unused for the most part because I didn't prioritize time to them.My advice is: Build at least 2-3 months of backlog (2x a week / 1x a week) – whatever it is, and see how that feels to you. Unless it's something you can commit your energy to 100%, it doesn't often work out as a sustainable thing. And sustainability is the name of the game in content creation.Can you tell us more about Black Curtain Audios?It’s my passion project, the core of my love for content creation and the perfect intersection of the skills I've acquired in the time I’ve spent here. Black Curtain Audios is an erotic audiobook experience. It's everything you love about roleplay audios with different voices and sound effects, blended with passionate narrative storytelling.BCA features full cast, full immersion erotic audio stories. The idea is to build movies for people to listen to, an experience as different type of erotic audio. There is no listener interaction in these stories, so they align closer with an audiobook than most audios that are expected in this NSFW audio community.My goal with Black Curtain Audios is to build a hype around this type of audio so I can build a team to build better audios. I want to take BCA to romance novel conventions to advertise as another medium of spicy storytelling that could incorporate the writers at those conventions. By working with those authors to build shorter novella type audios around characters that their listeners love, we're the cross roads for people who want more out of their spicy audiobooks with characters that they love and recognize.The other intention is to expose the narrators / actors I work with to more people to potentially get them more work. I want to use BCA as a launching pad for discovery of talent so people can find new listeners.Right now, I'm doing everything. Writing / Producing / Voice Acting / Editing / Marketing / Everything. I'm grateful to have the support of HydratedBaritone, who is one of my oldest friends in this space. He's lent his voice to two of my projects through BCA, because he believes in this like I do, and we align closely in our passion for erotic storytelling on a grander scale.
Black Curtain Audios features immersive NSFW audiobooks with high quality production
I have to say I am so impressed with BCA!! I listened to "The Roommates Boyfriend (Act 1)" and I loved every second of it. It felt so premium, sexy and so incredibly realistic.That's the response I'm hoping for! In this space, because the listener is not involved, the response to this type of audio has been mixed. And all that tells me is this isn't my target audience. And that's perfectly fine.That’s okay. I am your target audience.You are!You have collaborated with so many people over the past 4 years. Are there any people you would like to shout out today in this interview?Oh god, so many. I'm so fortunate to have the opportunity to work alongside such incredible talent, it's really intimidating sometimes! Badjhur, Jarl, Wkdfaerie, ChiLittleWolf, Lurky, Vel's Library, Julius King… I could honestly go on and on. Everyone is so incredibly talented in this space, I'm so lucky to be able to work with them.That is a list of wonderful people. Thank you so much for sitting down and talking to me, Dex. Your insight is so important.I love sharing my experiences with people, there's so much in this community that's gatekept or not talked about. I'm fully in the mindset that everyone can win if we work together.
Since Carrd does not offer a comment section feature, I created a reddit post here which allows you to leave a comment. If you'd rather send anonymous feedback, you can do so here.All the love,-ari
This interview was conducted in March 2025
IN MEMORIAM
This post is dedicated to Badjhur, who was a dear friend. An inspiration to many, Badjhur will forever remain a beacon of light and a pillar of this community. Rest easy, Badj. ♡
If you can, consider donating to the Badger Trust in his honour:
FEB 6th, 2025
TSS #4: Staying Safe in a NSFW Space
Existing in the spicy community as a writer, editor or VA can be a beautiful thing. It is rewarding to see others enjoy your creative output, and exciting to forge bonds with fellow community members, thus eventually forming your own little realm within the space where you feel heard, supported, and comfortable.Unfortunately, there comes a time when we all have to deal with the fact that not everyone in this community has our best interest in mind. I must warn you: This is not a comfortable topic; but it is an important one. That being said, it definitely is in your best interest to familiarize yourself with warning signs of these types of characters.
Almost everyone I know has had a bad encounter with another community member. Numbers-wise, it is not a question of whether or not it will happen to you, too, but when. This might sound like a grim and pessimistic outlook. I understand, and I don’t mean to scare you; but in my experience, it is much better to be at least somewhat prepared to face this possibility than to stumble into it completely blindsided.This guide is meant to help community members recognize warning signs and patterns of behaviour. Additionally, it supplies you with some tips on how to possibly avoid getting into an unpleasant situation. Thank you to everyone who shared their experiences and voices to make this guide possible. You will find a full appendix of credits at the end of this guide.For now, let’s get into the unfortunate red flags and advice from the community on how to deal with those. Please note that this is only meant to function as a helpful resource and is not fail-safe. If you ever get into an uncomfortable situation, please seek immediate help from people close to you, either in your personal life or someone you trust within the community. You’re never alone. And you never need to feel ashamed for asking for help.In this episode, we'll explore:- Setting boundaries
- Knowing your worth
- Noticing red flags
- See something? Say something.This guide would not have been possible without all the creators who gave input on this. See all the credited creators here: Credits <3
#1: Setting BoundariesGiven the nature of the NSFW community, there will be people who are less than interested about respecting your personal space and safety while trying to maximize their own “pleasure”. Even if you have not had an encounter like this, setting personal boundaries is of the utmost importance to protect your sanity in this space.Ask youself: “What are my main goals?” Those will vary from person to person, you might want to:
- Share your art
- Make new friends
- Find a romantic connection
- Establish a side hustle
- Simply find an outletThese goals are very personal and, most of the time, people have a multitude of goals in mind when joining or existing in this space. For example, when I first joined, I simply needed a creative outlet and possibly wanted to make like-minded friends who also enjoy writing or reading story-driven porn. These goals are not set in stone and may change over time, but make sure to reflect on those and set boundaries accordingly.I know we have all heard this before, but the internet never forgets. Be mindful of what you allow people to know about you. Whether it is in a DM with someone you think you can trust, or a public post on twitter, reddit, bluesky – once it is out there, it is.It is absolutely fine to say no to sharing your name.It is absolutely fine to say no to sharing your birthday, even just the month.It is absolutely fine to say no to sharing pictures of yourself.It is absolutely fine to say no to sharing which country you live in.It is absoluetly fine to not share ANYTHING.If any question or conversation ever makes you feel uncomfortable, stop to think why it makes you feel that way. Don’t undermine your personal safety to please others.Again, given the nature of this space, you might find yourself in a flirtatious situation with another person. This can lead to a beautiful thing, but it is especially important to set boundaries in these situations.
Unfortunately, there are people who only look out for their own personal gain in this space. This is why it is so important to set boundaries and have conversations, even if it might feel awkward, of what you and the other person expect from this relationship. Are you only flirting and both are fine with it? Are you both looking to maybe explore something more serious? What are things you or the other person would not be okay with? Although heavy topics, answering and getting these questions answered will save you grief in the long haul.Note that boundaries do not only apply to romantic or friendly relationships, but also to protect your intellectual property as a VA or writer. If you want to make sure people understand your rules, it is helpful to set up a TOS. For inspiration on a TOS for writers, feel free to use mine here, or look at other writer’s TOS.
#2: Know the worth of your workEspecially when starting out, devaluing your own work is a common pitfall. I remember that when I was just starting out, a VA messaged me regarding one of my scripts. Back then, I thought of it as encouraging to do better, but looking back, it was nothing but nonconstructive. He said he liked the premise, but would have liked this, this, this, and this, and mostly that, changed. Basically, everything.I erased the script and rewrote it completely to his liking, and he ended up filling it. I hated the script. It wasn’t mine anymore. It was someone elses’ ideas of what the script should be, with total disregard of what I envisioned it to be. It’s been over two years and I still remember this. It doesn’t hurt me at all today – but I do remember how much it did back then, and I do not ever wish to do that again for someone I do not even know.That being said, be confident in what you write. It certainly does not help anyone to be overconfident, but just stand your ground. If you wrote a script with a certain premise in mind, don’t change it willy-nilly because someone wants you to (unless it makes sense to you ofc). And if someone disregards rules you set, call them out.If you said that paywalled fills require permission, make sure they ask for it.If you said a certain site is a no-no and they still use your content to post, ask them to take it down.If you ask for a fee for paywalled content, make sure they pay you.And if they blatantly disregard your rules after you privately reminded them several times, call them out publicly.If they have a valid reason, the community will understand. Sadly, most of them do not have a valid reason.
#3: Notice Red FlagsThis chapter might be the one I have been dreading the most. Because in my opinion, it is the most important and decisive one. Recognizing red flags early can save you from uncomfortable and even harmful situations. Often, warning signs come disguised as charm, friendship, or seemingly harmless flirtation. Someone might say, “I don’t normally do this, but...” to make you feel special — when in reality, it’s just a manipulation tactic.If someone, ANYONE! Constantly pushes your boundaries and makes you uncomfortable, ignores your “no”’s or “haha idk”’s, or only only engages with you when they want something, pay attention.This is the sign of a pattern. Trust your instincts. If a situation feels off, don’t ignore it. Ideally, you have made some platonic friends within the community. Ask them how they feel about the messages that make you feel uncomfortable. If you don’t have anyone in this space to talk to, message me on Reddit or Twitter. My Dms are open. It might take me a while to get back to you, but I promise I will.Lastly, just always keep in mind: Trust your fucking instincts. If something feels off, it might as well be. You do not owe anyone your time or energy, especially not to anyone who disregards your own comfort. Calling out red flags is not paranoid. You are protecting yourself.#4 See something? Say something.I picked this to be the last point, as it will probably be the hardest thing to do. But voicing what is happening is so extremely powerful. Whether it is to a friend, a twitter DM, a discord chat – someone will read it. If you see someone you know being very problematic, even if it doesn’t involve you, you can still say something.Talk to the people you think might be effected[, too.]
Ask your peers if they have seen any patterns.
Ask mutual friends if they noticed anything [different] about the person.
Question your own biases about the person.
#4 See something? Say something.I picked this to be the last point, as it will probably be the hardest thing to do. But voicing what is happening is so extremely powerful. Whether it is to a friend, a twitter DM, a discord chat – someone will read it. If you see someone being problematic, even if it doesn’t involve you, you can still say something.Talk to the people you think might be effected (too.)
Ask your peers if they have seen any patterns.
Ask mutual friends if they noticed anything (different) about the person.
Question your own biases about the person.Be forgiving if you are wrong.
Stay vigilant if you are right.
#5 Thank you & CreditsAgain: This guide is not a definitive help, but rather something I wish I would have known when I first started out.Thank you to everyone who contributed to this:@90sgoodgirl (https://twitter.com/90sgoodgirl)
@beancatt (https://twitter.com/beancatt)
@blvmoonixn (https://twitter.com/blvmoonixn)
@CaitlinMcCVoice (https://twitter.com/CaitlinMcCVoice)
@Christinavacca (https://twitter.com/Christinavacca)
@crayoncrayonnva (https://twitter.com/crayoncrayonnva)
@DemonLynx (https://twitter.com/DemonLynx)
@GalacticBellhop (https://twitter.com/GalacticBellhop)
@garbagecxre (https://twitter.com/garbagecxre)
@JuicyLavender (https://twitter.com/JuicyLavender)
@LamiacyNewAcc (https://twitter.com/LamiacyNewAcc)
@LizziesaysHiVa (https://twitter.com/LizziesaysHiVa)
@Loandbeehold (https://twitter.com/Loandbeehold)
@mareytea (https://twitter.com/mareytea)
@sagexkage (https://twitter.com/sagexkage)
@sloth215_ (https://twitter.com/sloth215_)
@SNSugar21 (https://twitter.com/SNSugar21)
@urgirlyjazz (https://twitter.com/urgirlyjazz)If you feel like you are missing from this list, please message me.
I hope this article was helpful for you. Since Carrd does not offer a comment section feature, I created a reddit post here which allows you to leave a comment. If you'd rather send anonymous feedback, you can do so here.All the love,-ari
May 22nd, 2024
TSS #3: How to monetize your scripts / content
After a while of publishing content of any sort in the space, you might want to explore options of monetizing your content. In this episode of The Story Sauce, we will explore different ways of monetizing NSFW & SFW works, primarily for script content. Let's learn about getting started on monetizing, how to open up (and get!) commissions, safe and anonymous payment methods and more.
Lets start with the an important PSA: There is NO shame in wanting to monetize! Anyone who tells you otherwise or insinuates that you should feel less for wanting to monetize your content should go kick rocks. Just as a warning, those people definitely exist. I have gotten snide remarks about being "greedy" before. Like the great Jinkx Monsoon would say: Water off a dicks ducks back. If it happens to you, don't let it get to you. Your time, talent and experience is valuable, and should be treated as such.In this episode, we'll explore:- When to start monetizing
- Selecting the right platform for your content
- How to set up commissions
- How to advertise your services
When to start monetizing
Let me start this off by saying: There is no "right" or "wrong" time to start monetizing, per se. But, you may want to establish some sort of standing within the community first. Ask yourself: Would you buy a gift for someone you barely know, or commission an artist whose work you are unfamiliar with? The answer is probably no, so focusing on building a backlog of content and establishing some connections within the community first is advisable.When it comes to commissions especially, trust is at the core of the transaction. The person who commissions you not only does so because they are a fan of your work, but also because they trust that you will deliver a high quality result. This sort of trust can only be earned through actions: publishing your work and being a good community member.When it comes to gifting, there's an old saying in the community that the same $5 get passed around. I buy a gift for creator A, who then buys a gift to creator B, who then some time later buys a gift for me. It's funny how these things work, but there is definitely some truth to it.
Selecting the right platform
Now that we got that out of the way, let's define different ways of monetizing. The most popular ways to monetize written content in the community are:1. Throne - wishlist platform which allows creators to get gifts (both physical and digital) from their audience
2. Ko-Fi - platform that lets you accept tips ("buy a coffee"), create membership tiers or open a shop
3. Cashapp, Paypal, Venmo & co. - direct paymentThere are many more ways and platforms to monetize. For the purpose of brevity, we will focus on these three today.
Throne
Throne is a privacy-first wishlist platform. Gifts can be set to be crowdfounded, too, meaning multiple people can contribute a gift or tip goal. Throne is 100 % private: After a gift is fully funded, Throne handles ordering the item, meaning the order process is completely seperated from the gifting by your audience.For payouts, Throne is working with Stripe, allowing you to withdraw from your balance, directly to your bank account. Note that there is a 2.9-7% fee charged by thrones for gifts from non-partner stores and cash gifts. You can read more about Throne's fees here. Gifters can use their throne balance or a credit card to pay.Physical gifts
You can add physical gifts that your audience can buy for you. Creators can curate wishlists, either from featured stores that are partnered with throne, or through third party stores.Tips & Tip jars:
Another possibility is setting up tip jars ('cash gifts'). Setting up tip jars or individual tip gifts is a great way to get support from your audience and fellow creators.
Tips on Throne can be collected through individual tip-items or a collective, crowdfunded tip jar
Payment for commissions
After discussing payment for a commission request, you can set up a cash gift on throne to receive your payment. This can be done by setting up a seperate cash gift amounting to the agreed price, and then sending the direct link to the gift to the person who commissioned you (hover over gift -> share link). Remember to turn off auto-tweeting if you don't want the commission payment to be publicly tweeted from your account!
Using a cash gift is an easy option to use Throne for commission payments
Ko-Fi
Ko-Fi lets you accept tips/donations, offer commissions, create membership tiers and open a shop. Ko-Fi is very versatile when it comes to their features, but note that Ko-Fi has a very strict policy when it comes to NSFW content.Adult-themed fiction containing conventional/mainstream sexual content and themes is allowed, while ASMR and voice acting relating to pornographic scenarios or prohibited fetish areas is not allowed. In either case, you will have to tag your profile as NSFW (even if you just use the word fuck once). Find Ko-Fi's full NSFW policy here.Using Ko-Fi as a Tip Jar
At its core, Ko-Fi is a great way to set up a tip jar. By default, Ko-Fi uses the "coffee" metaphor (1 coffee = $5), but you can change it to just showing the traditional tip interface with the currency of your choice. You can set up to three different amounts for tips (e.g. $1, $5, $10). Donators can still set a custom amount, but never lower than the minimum price you set in your profile.Donators have the option to change from one-time to monthly support, which then acts like a membership. One-off donations on Ko-Fi have no fee, but payment providers will still take transaction fees, usually around 3%. For monthly recurring donations, and membership tiers, Ko-Fi has a 5% fee. Find an overview about fees on Ko-Fi here.Using Ko-Fi for commissions
Ko-Fi has a great setup to help creators open commissions. It let's you personalize almost every aspect of your commission listing, set available slots (e.g. after you accepted 2/2 slots, the commissions get closed until you reopen them), set helpful add-ons (for example if you want to include an additional fee for paywalled content based on your work) or even create coupon codes you can share to promote your content.Note that Ko-Fi charges a 5% fee for commission-based payments. If you want to avoid that fee, you can simply ask the person that requested the commission to pay as a one-off donation or tip instead. Transaction fees still apply.Using the Ko-Fi shop feature
You can use the Ko-Fi shop feature to sell both physical and digital goods, as long as they follow Ko-Fi's ToS. This feature can be used to sell scripts (e.g. to enable the buyer to use the script to create an audio based on it for a paywalled platform). Note that Ko-Fi charges a 5% fee for shop-based payments. You can again avoid that fee by not using the shop and simply asking the person interested in the "item" to use the one-off donation/tip feature. Transaction fees still apply.Note that Ko-Fi is not anonymous, so if you want to protect your private name, use Throne instead!
Venmo, Paypal, Cashapp & co.
I would highly advise against using any direct payment providers such as Venmo, Paypal or Cashapp. The reason is simple: Your anonymity is just not guaranteed. You should always priorotize your safety in any online space, but especially spaces surrounding adult topics. Just as an example: Venmo is by default set to publicly share when you receive or make a payment, and you could unknowingly show the payments made between you and others.This is especially dangerous when you use your Venmo account for transactions with friends and family as well. Additionally, Venmo has come under scrutiny many times before over privacy concerns. When it comes to paypal, the sender will see the name (Personal account) or business name (Business account) of the person they are transacting with. This is most likely your legal info. Don't use these direct providers, go through Throne instead. Get your bag, but get it safely.
The fine print
I'm not here to give you legal info, but please remember that there are laws and taxes when it comes to making money online. These do depend on your countries legislation, and I highly suggest you read up on it to err on the side of caution.
You're too hot to go to jail. :)
How to set up commissions
When you are ready to open up commissions, there are some core aspects you should be considering.General - which gender tags are you taking commissions for? Provide which speaker+listener combinations you are comfortable writing about and for. If you are comfortable with all of them, state that any speaker+listener combo is fine. The more info you give people, the better.Timing - when can people expect to receive their commission? It's advisable to give the people information about your delivery timeframe. This is entirely your choice. If you can deliver within a week, kudos to you! If you need longer, do not be afraid to say so. I have mine set to 2-3 weeks.Pricing - how much do you want to charge for your work? Rates are usually given on a per word basis, e.g. $0.08 per word. What you charge is up to you, I have seen anything from $0.03 to $0.20 per word. Some creators also do ranges, such as a fixed rate for 1,500 - 1,800 words. I highly encourage to do your research and look what other creators around you charge.Payment - how do you want to get paid? Please see this episodes section about platforms and payment here for more info on how to select the right platform for your payment process. Also think about when you want people to pay you. I recommend getting the payment upfront, or at least 50% upfront. Don't wait until you delivered the finished project until asking for payment!Hard No's - which topics/kinks are you not willing to cover in your writing? You want to feel comfortable with your creations, so do not be afraid to set hard limits. Common hard limits are: Scat, Snuff, Vore, Watersports (pee), underage or barely legal characters, raceplay, religious themes, incest, beastiality. Don't worry: You can always reject a commission request if you are uncomfortable with its contents, even if the themes are not covered by your hard no's.ToS - what are people allowed to do with the commissioned work? Regardless if you offer commissions or not, having a Terms of Service (ToS) or Script Fill Policy post set up for your creations is always recommended. For inspiration, you can check out my ToS here.Logistics - where do people contact you about commissions? People need to know where they can contact you for requesting a commission. This can be done through DMs on various platforms (e.g. Twitter, Reddit) or through specialised forms. Be aware that some DMs get caught in spam filters, especially if you and the person DMing you don't follow or interact with each other. I recommend setting up a free Google form for your commissions. For inspiration on what to put in the form, feel free to use mine as inspiration, which you can find here.Hosting - where will you host your finished product? When you are ready to send the commissioned work, you need to host it somewhere. I suggest uploading it to scriptbin. Just remember to set it to "Listed: Unlisted script (but anyone with the address to the script can see it)". Google docs can be a little scary when it comes to sharing private info (mainly the gmail account used to write and read the document).
How to advertise your services
Now that we covered all the basics, let's get to the fun part: Getting people to actually commission you! The most popular ways of showing off your services are:Word of mouth: Most of the commissions I have gotten have been through word of mouth ('I saw that XYZ commissioned you' etc.). This leads back to my initial point of being a good community member. Engage with other peoples content, comment on other peoples posts, interact with them on social media, build (safe!!) connections to other creators. This is especially important when starting out.Make a carrd: Hey, what a coincidence, this site is hosted on carrd! Carrd offers an easy and free way of making your own little website to show off your links and services. After making a free account, simply select "New Site" on your dashboard and navigate to the "Profile" templates. Customize the template to your needs, link your socials and add info about how to commission you.
Carrd offers a range of easily customizable templates
Post on social media: I highly advise you to make a twitter account to post updates about your content and engage with your fellow creators. You can also tweet about your commission status using your Carrd link, a dedicated reddit post or a commission info sharepic. The sharepic is a great way to show all relevant info in a fun way.
Commission Info sheets are a great way of showing all relevant info in a fun way
NOTE: Do not advertise your commissions or any other avenues requiring payment in reddit communities without checking the subreddits policy first. Most subreddits (including GWA) have a strict no advertising rule!
I hope this article was helpful for you. Since Carrd does not offer a comment section feature, I created a reddit post here which allows you to leave a comment. If you'd rather send anonymous feedback, you can do so here.All the love,-ari
April 30th, 2024
The Story Sauce #2: A cumversation with cuddle_with_me
Today's edition of TSS pops the cherry of the "A Cumversation With"-series, where we feature creator spotlights through interviews.The first creator spotlight starts off with a bang: cuddle_with_me is a script writer and the creator of scriptbin.works, the most popular script hosting site in the community. We talked about his first steps in the community, how scriptbin was created and the future plans of his projects.
You have been part of the community for a long time now. When did you first join GWA?I came across GWA sometime during April or May 2014, I think. It was my first encounter with erotic audio, and for me it was really life-changing. I'd always liked erotic stories and porn, but it was always like standing pressed up against a window looking in on something I wasn't invited to. Erotic audio speaks directly to you, and that makes a lot of difference, it made a lot of difference to me.As always when a new field opens up to you, the world's a goo of various concepts and lingo, but I found scripts to be very interesting. At that point, of course at some level I knew that a porn shoot wasn't just locking two people into a hotel room with a gallon of lube and a bunch of condoms and coming back later to find Horny Buttsluts 69 ready for DVD presses. Stories had also prepped me for it in a way, with scenarios that could be both epic and very brief. But the idea of someone writing something and someone else just performing it, that was so mind-bendingly new to me, and it still is, really.So, at some point in late summer [2014, ed.], I worked up the courage to write my first script. I opened up the same text editor that I usually used for short notes, code, HTML, what have you. I went to a few of my favorite stories for inspiration, I went to a few recent audios for inspiration. And I wrote. And it was painstakingly slow, and my cheeks were a bright crimson red the entire time. I've had amorphous "dirty thoughts" for years at this point, but it was all through other people. Now I had to invent it, and as someone with nonexistent experience both sexually and at this kind of writing, I had to make it go somewhere. It was excruciating.I think this is something a lot of people in the community can relate to. The feeling of translating erotic thoughts into an actual story can be agonizing.Yes. I was sitting there pecking away, doubting myself, trying to feel the latent boner in the situation beneath all the shame, typing and deleting, forcing myself to go an additional mile beyond my comfort zone with every word. Eventually I had a script, and I worked up the courage to name it and post it with a hilariously bad other username I had for a while, and it sat there completely untouched for a week or so. It was a bad script, it came from a bad place in my heart. It wasn't about what it was supposed to be about. It wasn't about joy. It's no wonder no one picked it up.After about a week I wrote to Eve [u/Eves-garden, ed.], who would become one of my best friends, to tell her that what she does is great and gave me a lot of hope. We fell into a conversation which led to me describing what I'd just been through and she picked up the script, found a bunch of things about it that were salvageable and recorded it. I was over the moon, but she felt a little mixed about what she'd done, since she respected the integrity of my work more than I did. So she resolved to help me write better, and she really did. She's the reason I'm a writer, and she got me to pick a real username too.So both feedback and having your script "brought to life" by a performer helped you overcome the hurdle of feeling uneasy about script writing in the beginning? Can you remember what her main feedback for your script was?In this specific case, the feedback was pretty indirect. She basically took a broken script of a bad idea and made it work by bending things into shape and adding some parts that were needed for things to go where they needed to go. After that, we wrote a few scripts together and I received a lot of advice that mostly set me straight on some basic issues.It occurs to me now that many of the things I try to think about now, and that I fundamentally value about scripts be they mine or someone else's, are things that were fixed there, like how the characters should always have some sort of internal motivation for doing what they do that's grounded in experience or genuine feelings. In the bad story, it was about someone who, for no readily explored reason, wanted to give someone a good sexual time on the grounds that they deserved it. When Eve recorded it, she added, or really fleshed out, I don't remember, a reason for the woman to both feel that empathy for him and feel qualities in him that really tugged at her sexually. You hear people going around saying "show don't tell" a lot, and there are all kinds of concrete examples of that in scriptwriting but this is definitely one.I should add that much of that kind of thinking would have flown in the stories I'd read. Many erotic stories are about exploring a fantasy in your head and going from one point to another - to be blunt, it doesn't always have to make sense, and it's not necessarily a bad thing. But this was a time where that style crashed hard against involving other people in telling that narrative.Giving characters an intrinsic motivation is great advice. It seems like you were really lucky with meeting an amazing person right when you started out!Meeting the right type of person at the start really helps. Eve was new to the community at that time too - maybe a few months later she would have had too many messages to see mine in the pile, so I got lucky in that way too. Timing and chance are probably the strongest factors a scriptwriter have to deal with.Luck is such an underrated factor! I see a lot of writers beating themselves up or feeling not good enough when scripts don't get a fill. But timing and luck are both your best friend and worst enemy, when it comes to getting noticed in the community.Timing and luck can basically make all the difference in terms of getting what you write in front of sympathetic eyes, which is what decides if your script ever turns into more than a script. A script is a weird genre of writing that way, in that it can be tremendously satisfying to do a good job and get your creative juices flowing all over the place, but there's also a concrete, inescapable "measure of success" built into it - so did anyone actually record the damn thing? The duality of this and of sorting out who you're writing for and why you're doing it is hard to manage sometimes.How do you deal with this exact feeling? Has this "fill anxiety" gotten better the more you post or is it always there?To be honest, very poorly. It's always there. I'm lucky to have a strong internal drive when I really have inspiration to get it out there, but I think over time it's also gotten me towards the end of the spectrum where what's important to the performer doesn't matter because I'm doing it for my own good primarily, and so end up putting things out that are less and less particularly appealing. Or maybe I write what I've always written, and I just have worse and worse luck getting found. That's what I'm saying - there's no real way for me to know, and playing up the intuitive parts of yourself, which works well when writing, also means trying to find these answers and rationalizations, and it can drive you crazy if you let it.It truly never goes away, does it? It's hard not to get in your head about it, but at the end of the day, what matters to me is the feeling of accomplishment when finishing a script and being brave enough to share it with the world.That's what I try to take away too. It's how you get to 120 scripts, apparently!Over 120 scripts… And those are just the public ones. That’s honestly impressive! Do you have a favorite script or scenario you keep coming back to?I feel like so many of my scripts are the same thing, or at least a handful of things repeated. Some people say there's a limit to how imaginative it could get, "it's just smut", but I've never thought like that. There are so many writers writing things with every script they do that are so far from what I'd even think of. So I'm just trying to keep my own pot stirring and do things at least a little differently.A favorite aspect that I like to incorporate as often as I can is someone who isn't somebody special, who is maybe unsure of themselves, but who nonetheless has a very good time and sees themselves received and validated in what happens. It's not a secret that that's sort of wish fulfillment for myself, but to be honest I want it to be something the performer can see themselves in too.I love that. This is one aspect that made me fall in love with audio porn. The vulnerability and encouragement that is often found in audio roleplays helped me immensely to feel comfortable with my body and my sexuality. Especially after being exposed to "traditional porn" media for so long.My absolute favorite aspect is that it's just ordinary people like me and you, doing this because they feel like it, for other people just like me and you. There's no director insisting that they should change positions and now zoom in on the hoo-haa and moan louder. (Uh, except for when I put those directions in - sorry!)When it comes to writing, do you have a routine? Do you listen to music while writing or do you need silence? Do you usually write in one go, or do you jump between scripts and stories, having multiple WiPs?I mentioned having written my first thing in my go-to text editor. I very quickly switched to a dedicated writing application, of which there are many. Mine in particular is Focused by 71Square, but I don't think it's better or worse for any given person. What's important is that it's a convenient place that you feel right at home in and that's near you where you want to write. People write on their phones, and the thought of that gives me the heebie-jeebies, for reasons that might not be obvious (like trying to spell out "oooh mmmh mmmmmph" without autocorrect thinking you're having a stroke, and not the pleasant kind).Focused autosaves when I open and close it, and I think there's about 30 or 40 "untitleds" in various stages of grave disrepair there now. Having a separate thing that looks and feels like something else helps more than you'd think.
A screenshot from Focused by 71squared, a markdown based writing application for Mac
Much of what I write is basically written in one go, as I think about it, poured out of my mind. I am way too bad with editing, and I hope I have gotten better at at least splicing what I write up into chunks that are simpler for people to read as they record. I'm not anti-editing and I fiddle pretty relentlessly with things I write otherwise. But let's call it a combination of doing "just enough" editing by being one or two sentences ahead in my mind, and some sort of conviction that any script I write is just about as good as it'll get when I write it. The additional 5-10% is not going to swing anyone's mind.Thank you for sharing that resource with us! You are, what a lot of people would call, a pillar of the community. You created scriptbin, which is now the most popular platform when it comes to hosting scripts in the community. Can you take us down memory lane, when did you create scriptbin and why?If that's the way I'm being seen, I'm thankful for that.scriptbin came out of what news networks would call "a developing story" - around December 2020, Pastebin decided the world had not seen enough misery that year and started enforcing the terms of services for their site by locking out/unpublishing some pastes with NSFW scripts in them. I was personally not affected by this because a few years prior, I'd lost a script to what was either exactly this or to some sort of mistake on my own part, so being an insane person, I'd written my own script hosting engine and gotten my own domain name for my scripts.So before scriptbin was a thing, you were already hosting your scripts on your own site?I was. But it was a bare bones site - it showed the script and applied formatting I liked, making it look sort of like what my editor looked like, just to give it a bit more flavor. But there wasn't even a "list of all things" - it was just made so that I had a link to that instead of to pastebin.
A screenshot from cuddle_with_me’s personal hosting site, used for his scripts before creating scriptbin
But I saw how everyone else was panicking [when pastebin started deleting NSFW content], and I thought, you know what, it's the holidays, I have time off, and I sat down and wrote the first version of scriptbin in two or three days, and opened it up.Uptake was pretty slow for a few days and then I posted a link on GWA Script Guild, and people started flooding in. I'd made a sort of makeshift function where you could go grab the "export your pastes" zip in Pastebin and be able to upload it and tick the things you wanted to keep. I know it was still rough for everyone to change all links everywhere, and it pains me that the process had so many inconveniences.It was important to me from the beginning that it was a hosting site, not some sort of social network with messaging and so on. Both to scope it down to something that could fit in the allotted time, and to something that would not then also require a lot of upkeep and continuous development to make everyone happy.The name scriptbin is an obvious homage to Pastebin - Pastebin was meant to just hold stuff you pasted in and sent to someone else, so scriptbin is meant to just hold scripts you pasted in. They were jettisoned because they were the thing that had to go for the original stuff to stay - I wanted to make something where scripts were "the original stuff".I don't know how much this is apparent now, but many people were calm about staying on Pastebin, and Ao3, being one of those "around since the beginning of the internet" sites, was solving the issue for a lot of people too. And there were other hosting sites too. So scriptbin was just one of many lifeboats that people could swim to.This might just have been the best decision you could have ever made for the community.I'm thankful for the appreciation, but I also know that other people did their own hosting sites, and if I hadn't done it, someone else would have. There's a very strong tradition in GWA for stepping up, going back to the soundgasm we all know and mostly still use, which is provided free of charge by Stealth. I've explained at length why this is a difficult thing to do given the cost of bandwidth. Doing something that was "like soundgasm" was a north star for me when I started scriptbin.Speaking of costs - how is scriptbin financed? Besides all the time and effort you have put and continue to put into it, there must be recurring costs as well which need to be covered?Most of the costs that scriptbin has generated over its lifetime have been paid out of pocket by me. A year ago I relaunched an attempt at a Patreon that I'd tried before as a way to accept donations, which I'd had one or two people offer to give, and I was curious. The relaunch worked better and landed at a sorta stable level, which is about what it costs for the monthly hosting fees for the server and for the email host. Separate from this, there are costs for SSL certificates (the https thing) and the domain name itself - that's once a year, it's not a ton and I don't think I've ever even mentioned it.
A screenshot from scriptbin’s cost breakdown on the support page, updated monthly
Aside from that, time and effort. I don't work for free for my day job, but that's not what this is about. I went back and forth on Patreon for a long, long time, especially because Patreon has such a cultural association from inside and out being connected to "if you join here, you get extra stuff" and all I wanted was to accept donations without anyone's real name appearing. I decided I could only do it if I was crystal clear about all that and openly said: here are the costs - if someone wants to help me pay those costs, that's great. That way, if anyone has an issue with me absconding to my own Caribbean island, they can see how not the case that is.My moral frame for this still thinks with the button on the front page and link in most of the footers I'm pimping it way too hard than I should. I'm sure of the literally tens of thousands of people who have at least once logged into scriptbin, there are people who think I deserve to be paid handsomely for it - as sure as I am of there being many people who think it would be unseemly to make money "off of'' hosting other people's works beyond covering the costs. It's a fine line to walk.My own position is not surprisingly that I like money the same as most people, but also that the integrity of the site comes first, and I'm not starving as it is. And of course I don't want the idea to take root in my conscious or subconscious decisions about scriptbin that people's worth are connected to how much they're able to/choose to contribute to a Patreon.How has scriptbin changed since you first launched it?It's gotten more refined, it's gotten more features. It still doesn't work as well as I want it to work in a number of ways. I think tags should be a lot more functional and a lot more effortless than they are, for instance. Some of the things I've been thinking of doing, I have to move very gingerly around, because I don't want a significant part of the community to wake up to having to revisit their every posted script to not look all stupid, which is what can happen, and which is incredibly undesirable because a good part of the community will never diddle with their scriptbin scripts ever again for various reasons. It should just work.I've added more experiments, like the way you can use a person's script text as a source of shuffled text and produce very strange and funny texts. And various ways of trying to get random scripts in front of your eyes. This would be helped by a One True Tagging Philosophy™ which Will Never Ever Be Adopted® because people are people.I really enjoy shufflebin when i'm stuck creatively. And I completely understand the difficulty of changing fundamental functions, without it being a complete relaunch with consequences for a lot of users. Hypothetically, if time, effort, resources or user consequences were not an issue, what's a "dream" feature you would like to implement on scriptbin?One of my white whales is some sort of grasp of which words are more correlated with which tags. As in, imagine if you could paste your script in and it would pop up a thing saying, oh this looks like [cock worship] or [friends to lovers].
It basically requires having a large set (a "corpus") of text and a set of tags for each, which lets you build up statistical knowledge for every word for how common or uncommon it is for that word. If you take all that information and weigh it against itself, you come up with a lot of noise but also sometimes with recurring indications that this right here, this is Breed Talk™ (as it were).This is the kind of thing that sounds like the new wave of AI, but it's a series of approaches in NLP, Natural Language Processing, that range back decades at this point. The same thing goes with Markov chains, the word probability structures that power both some autocorrection algorithms and the generate a random script thing on scriptbin.This would be a great feature indeed. I'm a big sucker for organization and sorting.Imagine if scriptbin could sort of show your scripts in clusters of related subjects, without you having to do anything. Organization is the thing I've worked most on and also the thing that's probably the weakest. I have things I've had suggested to me in the first scriptbin thread on GWA Script Guild that aren't implemented, and it's not because they are bad ideas but because it's just hard to do all those things simultaneously and not have people backed into someone else's organizational corner. If complexity was not a factor, I would love for scriptbin to be able to accommodate a lot of different ways to organize and present scripts.When you created scriptbin, did you expect it to be such a success?I'm going to be candid and say that as the same individual who writes and posts scripts and frets about upvotes, of course it was my hope that people would like scriptbin and, through it, like me. I'm sure there are people who don't work like that but I haven't met very many. That said, before people starting jumping on in numbers, I was ready and prepared for it to have been an experiment that was one of many, to have fizzled out early. The fact that people took to it so quickly surprised me then and still surprises me today.You have expressed fears of scriptbin becoming a community bottleneck before, are those fears still something you think about?I do worry about being a community bottleneck, yes. In the ideal world, I could have a policy that allows even some of the things it currently doesn't. The reason it doesn't is because without it, I was at the nasty end of a conversation with a hosting support person and had to get across that no, scripts hosted did not espouse certain things, things I don't even want to repeat here. If I was a better person, or was more courageous, I would have been able to not care about my name becoming public and mount my own defense better in the open - for example.I get the sense that while I may be a good person to have created it technically, I may have been a bad choice for being a steward of it in this sense. Would we have been better served by something that was less purpose-built, but had better suited people behind it, with more Ao3-type juice and weight? Will my shortcomings here mean bad things in the future? These things literally keep me up at night.That's heavy. I'm sorry you have to deal with that. I have never considered the logistics around navigating the ToS of third party services like hosting sites. That just shows how much there is going on behind the scenes of a platform like scriptbin that the end user never sees.To be honest, despite a lot of pre-emptive worrying, I didn't see it either. But yes, scriptbin can't be "wider" than the narrowness of the hoster. There are wider hosters out there, but they are often poorer fits for the technical platform, which is a hard thing to figure out when so much is already built. Would a good steward say: it's much more important to the integrity of the community, so I'm going to rebuild all of this so that I can make the move and risk less? Because risking other people's stuff is literally what you're doing. As you say, it's heavy.It's very admirable that you not only take all these burdens upon you, but you're also continuously working towards making scriptbin better for the community. What motivates you the most to continue working on scriptbin?The same thing that did from the start: the hopes of it being useful to people. I do this (software development) for a living, and it's amazing how often people blame themselves when things don't work, rather than blame the people who made the thing that doesn't work. Someone forgot to take the person using it into account, or was paid to rush on to the next thing to save money. There's a saying in the industry that "software is eating the world", and there are good and bad parts to that.I'm a type of person who, for better or worse, tries to find value and meaning by making things and solving problems for other people. That's not always a good thing, and maybe I could use a therapist, but as long as that's what I'm inclined to do, why not try to actually help people while I'm doing it?When I sometimes hear people say that they like scriptbin, that can make my day even when the rest of it has been pretty crappy. That's what I'm here for.I love that. And I hope you hear it more often! Speaking of continuing working on scriptbin - are there any fun future sneak peaks for scriptbin you can share with us?There are a few experiments that have not left the oven, and some that basically never went anywhere. The one that's farthest along is my attempt at making a new formatting for collab scripts, where scriptbin would know more about the intent of each line and be able to present it more like a conversation. Collaborations require multiple people working together, often simultaneously, so being able to look at the same script and toggle on/off others' parts and focus on yours could be helpful.
A sneak peak from scriptbin’s collab feature (in development) - check it out here
I still want help from people actually using it before I go build it all the way into the site and then maybe have to change it, though. But the idea has a long lineage - my few collab scripts had similar formatting on my own hosting site.
A screenshot from cuddle_with_me’s personal hosting site showing the collab formatting
I love, love, love the collab feature. I'm so excited for how it is developing! The version on cuddle.works is also very organized and clean looking, I very much enjoy that.Thank you. Also, and this is not a future feature, but I think the "Prompter" feature on each script, that you can bring up to have a continuously scrolling display of the script for when you're recording, is new/hidden enough that many people probably haven't seen it. And it's kinda hidden there, but if you're using a computer you can even click a button and sync up your phone as a remote control for the scrolling, so that you don't have to induce an audible click when you stop/change pace.
A screenshot from scriptbin’s prompter feature, available on every script hosted on the site
Think back to the time when you first started being active in the community. What piece of advice would you tell your past self?Probably "as much empathy as you think you have, you'll need to step out of your situation and see things from the other person's side more". I have behaved in ways I wish I wouldn't have, that could have been avoided if I'd just realized that the somewhat euphoric feeling I had was not the only thing that existed. Maybe it's a bad thing to place so much of your own value in other people's picture of you, but someone obsessed with that can still apparently ignore what a situation looks like from the other side.It wasn't anything serious in my case and everything got cleared up fine, just the type of embarrassing behavior that you think of years later and still die of shame. I think more empathy solves many problems. Maybe the reason the scripts I don't see filled weren't filled was because of some issue I would immediately understand if I tried recording them myself? Clarity and feedback and honesty are helpful. You can't always follow them to a T in every situation, but they are valuable gifts.That’s great advice. We’re almost at the end… This is a chance to shout out other creators you enjoy. Is there anyone you wanna shout out?Oh God. My top 10 performer list has more than 50 people in it.I feel that, heavily.I'm reminded of what Douglas Adams said about dictaphones: the button that stops the recording is the button that turns your brain back on again. It's always hard to remember, to prioritize, to narrow it down.I'll have to mention Eve [u/Eves-garden]; she's a great person, a great friend. I wrote to her because of how much I enjoy what she's doing and without her, there would never have been any cuddle_with_me scripts, and consequently also no scriptbin.Aside from that, there are so many people who work so hard to help out with audio production, to provide services (like soundgasm) and with wrangling the community and giving them a platform that's both safe, non-judgmental and open, which are sometimes not easy to resolve. So I'm always grateful for them doing what they do, so all of this will still be here tomorrow.As a special other addition, I'll mention u/LittleMako, who has been a helpful constant in the community for a long time, always there with a kind word, always checking in. What she does doesn't fall into any other role, she's just one of those people that I deeply appreciate being around.Thank you for sharing! Lastly... Where can people find and support you?scriptbin is at https://scriptbin.works/
my scripts are at https://www.reddit.com/r/cuddle_with_me/
scriptbin has a Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/scriptbin - and you can read more about my nonexistent Caribbean island here.But most importantly - I am open to any feedback about my scripts or scriptbin on Reddit PMs. Please do not use the chat function since it really likes not notifying me about anything, and results in me seeing things two weeks too late.Thank you so much for doing this!! Loved having this talk with you and learning more about everything cuddle_with_me! ♥️Thank you for talking to me and best of luck with this series!
Since Carrd does not offer a comment section feature, I created a reddit post here which allows you to leave a comment. If you'd rather send anonymous feedback, you can do so here.All the love,-ari
April 27th, 2024
The Story Sauce #1: Porn with plot
In this edition of TSS, I want to focus on one of my favorite parts of every script: the plot.
We have all heard the saying “I watch porn for the plot”. Well, when it comes to audio porn, the plot is even more important when crafting an immersive experience, for both the voice actor and the listeners.Of course, porn – just like any other form of media – is full of tropes. Your jock bully corners you in the gym. Your new neighbor is secretly a pervert. Your best friend is actually head over heels in love with you. Tropes are fun! They are popular because they work. They may be very realistic or extremely absurd – whatever category they fall into, people probably have had fantasies about it, or they may relate to an experience portrayed by the character.Tropes are a great way to relate to the listener and thus create immersion and dimension within your story. But, how do we go deeper? For this post, let’s use the “Your jock bully corners you in the gym” trope as an example.Plot is directly connected to setting. Just from the title, we have already established the following key facts for the script:✔ The listener and the speaker know each other and have a complicated relationship.
✔ The speaker is rather mean, as he bullies the listener.
✔ The story is set at a gym.
✔ The speaker is a jock, and the fact that he corners the listener hints at him being taller and/or stronger than the listener.To flesh out the setting and adding a thicker plot to the story, we have to ask ourselves two very important questions.
The How’s and Why’s of a good story
Try using these questions on our established key facts:HOW do listener and speaker know each other?WHY is the speaker bullying the listener?HOW is the speaker cornering the listener?Remember that your answer to those questions can change during your writing process to fit new ideas you come up with on the fly. Don’t be afraid to change things!Let’s break down Question 1 together: HOW do listener and speaker know each other?Answering this question establishes lore for your characters. Where did they meet? Do they know each other from school, did they meet at a fitness class, or the gym itself? Are they coworkers? Are they on the same sports team? How long have they known each other?Depending on your chosen answer, the dynamic and dialogue between your characters may change significantly. Try establishing their back story without directly stating it:
| Instead of: | Try: |
|---|---|
| “We met in school!” | “Look at you in your little gym shorts. Are those the same ones you used to wear in Ms. Johnsons class? I think they sell them in adult sizes, too.” |
→ They have known each other for a long time
→ They used to have the same gym teacher
→ Speaker definitely checked out listeners ass(ets)
| Instead of: | Try: |
|---|---|
| “We met at the gym!” | “Why do even bother coming here? All you do is block equipment for others to use. I saw you on that leg press earlier. That was… embarrassing, honestly.” |
→ They met at the gym
→ They have known each other for a while
→ Speaker has been watching listener work out
You have questions about TSS, want to write a guest post or suggest a topic for a deep dive? I would love to hear from you. Please note that the e-mail you provide may be used by me to contact you.
| Instead of: | Try: |
|---|---|
| “We are coworkers!” | “So you come here now, too? Isn’t it enough that you ogle me during every meeting? Maybe I should HR know about your stalking tendencies.” |
→ They have been working together for a while
→ Listener might be new at the gym
→ It is implied that listener has a crush on the speaker
| Instead of: | Try: |
|---|---|
| “We are on the same sports team!” | “After your performance in the red zone, maybe you should spend more time practicing, instead of flailing around on the treadmill. Seriously, did your father never play catch with you?” |
→ They play in the same football team
→ Listener did not perform well in the last game
→ Speaker implies listener has daddy issues
I always try to come up with some sort of backstory for your characters in my head. Then, I try to indirectly establish this backstory through dialogue. Answering the how’s and why’s in your head, and then translating those answers into dialogue will help you adds layers and layers onto your plot.
Balancing porn and plot
How much exposition do you need on a good story? Well… It depends entirely on your story and what you want to convey. The good news is: You don’t need to write a 2,000 word script in order for it to have a thick plot. You can establish a lot with few words.Here are some things I have found helpful:✔ Reference events your characters experienced in the past to set up a timeline.
✔ Use setting details sparingly but vividly to ground the story’s context without overwhelming the story.
✔ Leverage sound effects and music: Background noises, ambient sounds, and music can enhance the setting and mood. Make sure to include suggestions within your script, if you think they’d be beneficial.
✔ Using nicknames can reflect the depth and nature of relationships between characters.
✔ Incorporate dialogue that subtly reveals key plot points or character traits, allowing listeners to infer deeper meanings.
Since Carrd does not offer a comment section feature, I created a reddit post here which allows you to leave a comment. If you'd rather send anonymous feedback, you can do so here.All the love,-ari
April 27th, 2024
The Story Sauce #0: Introductions
Welcome to The Story Sauce! My name is Arielle, but I mostly go by Ari. I publish scripts on reddit under the username LostMyTypewriter. I have been a creator in the community for two years now, but before posting myself, I was an avid listener of GWA content.A while ago, I released a guide for script writers (find the free guide here). Writing the guide took months, but the whole experience was such a joy. Reading the feedback of all of you made me incredibly happy; and seeing that it actually helped both new and seasoned script writers gave me such a profound feeling of pride and joy.When I first started out with publishing scripts, I felt like a deer in headlights. Don’t get me wrong, everything seemed fun and new, but navigating the space was challenging at times. That’s why, when I wrote the guide, I thought back and reflected on all the things I wish I had known back then. I made plenty of mistakes, and if just one person gets to learn from them, they were all worth it.I have been working on expanding the guide, and that will be updated and published eventually. But while doing so, I have noticed that there are certain topics that I would like to give deeper insight to. Hence The Script Sauce!What you can expect on The Story Sauce:✔ Deep dives into different topics about script writing, community building and monetization
✔ Interviews with writers, community service providers, editors and VA’s
✔ Writing exercises, challenges and creator spotlights
Since Carrd does not offer a comment section feature, I created a reddit post here which allows you to leave a comment. If you'd rather send anonymous feedback, you can do so here.All the love,-ari
About The Story Sauce
The Story Sauce is a place dedicated to everything about scriptwriting and storytelling.TSS offers in-depth analyses on various aspects of scriptwriting, community building, and monetization for creators.Additionally, the platform features interviews with writers, editors, community service providers, and voice actors within the community.The Story Sauce is commited to fostering a supportive environment for all creators in the community to learn, share, and grow. Join the subreddit to get notified of new posts and comment on articles!